Photoshop is an essential, powerful, and sometimes a befuddling tool. Adobe Photoshop CS One-on-One clears the fog, taking you from graphics newbie to Photoshop warrior, under the watchful, easygoing guidance of Photoshop master Deke McClelland. This full-color book, accompanied by nearly two hours of video tutorials on CD, is an up close and personal training experience. Deke's classroom approach takes you step by step through real-world projects that help you gain Photoshop proficiency. Along the way, you'll get a good dose of graphics theory, best practices, and tips for avoiding Photoshop disasters.This one-of-a-kind approach fills a gap in the available literature and delivers a unique learning experience.

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Preliminaries

What Is a Programming Language?

Programming Style

The VBA Environment

Chapter 3 The Visual Basic Editor, Part I

The Project Window

The Properties Window

The Code Window

The Immediate Window

Arranging Windows

Document Events

Chapter 4 The Visual Basic Editor, Part II

Navigating the IDE

Getting Help

Creating a Procedure

Run Mode, Design Mode, and Break Mode

Errors

Debugging

Macros

The VBA Programming Language

Chapter 5 Variables, Data Types, and Constants

Comments

Line Continuation

Constants

Variables and Data Types

VBA Operators

Chapter 6 Functions and Subroutines

Calling Functions

Calling Subroutines

Parameters and Arguments

Exiting a Procedure

Public and Private Procedures

Referencing a Project

Chapter 7 Built-in Functions and Statements

The MsgBox Function

The InputBox Function

VBA String Functions

Miscellaneous Functions and Statements

Chapter 8 Control Statements

The If… Then Statement

The For Loop

The For Each Loop

The Do Loop

The Select Case Statement

A Final Note on VBA

Objects and Object Models

Chapter 9 Object Models

Objects, Properties, and Methods

Collection Objects

Object Model Hierarchies

Object Model Syntax

Object Variables

Chapter 10 The Word Object Model

The Word Object Model: A Perspective

Word Enums

The VBA Object Browser

Chapter 11 The Application Object

Properties and Methods

The Options Object

The Task Object

The Template Object

The Window Object

The Pane Object

The View Object

The Zoom Object

Chapter 12 The Document Object

Properties That Return Collections

Spelling-Related Properties and Methods

The Documents Collection

Adding, Opening, and Saving Documents

Password-Related Properties

Protection-Related Properties and Methods

The Name Properties

Printing-Related Methods

Additional Members of the Document Object

Children of the Document Object

Example: Printing Document Headings

Example: Finding Used Styles

Chapter 13 The Section and HeaderFooter Objects

Adding a New Section

The PageSetup Object

Properties of the Section Object

The HeaderFooter Object

Chapter 14 The Range and Selection Objects

Comparing the Range and Selection Objects

Range and Selection Variables

Creating a Range or Selection Object

Changing a Range Object

Range and Selection Object Properties and Methods

Chapter 15 The Find and Replace Objects

Searching for Text

Searching for Formatting

The Replace Operation

The Execute Method

Example: Repeated Searching

Chapter 16 The Table Object

Formatting-Related Properties and Methods

The Cell Method

The Columns and Rows Properties

The ConvertToText Method

Sorting Methods

The Split Method

Example: Creating Tables from Word Lists

Example: Closing Up a Table

Chapter 17 The List Object

List Types

The List Object

The ListTemplate Object and ListGalleries

Example: Looking at Lists

Chapter 18 Shortcut Key Bindings

Finding a Key Binding

Creating a Key Binding

The KeyBinding Object

Chapter 19 Built-in Dialog Objects

The Show Method

The Display and Execute Methods

The DefaultTab Property

The Type Property

The Update Method

Example: Printing Document Statistics

Chapter 20 Custom Dialog Boxes

What Is a UserForm Object?

Example: Adding a Closing to a Letter

Example: A Fax Cover Sheet

Example: Quick Selection

Chapter 21 Menus and Toolbars

An Overview

CustomizationContext

The CommandBars Collection

The CommandBar Object

Command Bar Controls

Appendixes

Appendix Programming Word from Another Application

Setting a Reference to the Word Object Model

Getting a Reference to the Word Application Object

An Alternative Approach

Appendix The Shape Object

The Shape and InLineShape Objects

Z-Order

Creating InLineShapes

Creating Shapes

Examples

WordArt

Appendix Getting the Installed Printers

Appendix High-Level and Low-Level Languages

BASIC

Visual Basic

C and C++

Visual C++

Pascal

FORTRAN

COBOL

Lisp

Colophon

Deke McClelland

Deke McClelland is a popular expert and lecturer on Adobe Photoshop and the larger realm of computer graphics and design. He serves as host to the interactive "Best of Photoshop" CD that ships with Photoshop, and has written more than 70 titles (including Photoshop Bible and Photoshop 7 for Dummies) translated into 25 languages with 3 million copies in print. One of the most award-winning writers in the business, Deke has received a total of seven honors from the Computer Press Association. He is an Adobe Certified Expert, a member of the PhotoshopWorld Instructor Dream Team, and a contributing editor for Macworld and Photoshop User magazines. In 2002, Deke was inducted into the National Association of Photoshop Professional's Photoshop Hall of Fame.

I found his book (and CD) very good. His lesson planning was excellent. However, as I am using CS2 versus a later edition of CS software, was not able to use the shortcuts, etc., that he provided for the book.

Am also disappointed that his Photoshop CS2 will not be released until August.

The book is very well-written and easy to read. I can see the immediate impact on my pictures after reading each lesson. The author takes you straight to the important functionality (and skip the useless or less powerful features which glut the Photoshop interface). I've rarely felt so empowered just by reading a book. Kudos Deke !

One wish is that the book would give more than one example for each technique (may be as a separate exercice at the end of each chapter, to avoid disrupting the flow). Also I haven't found the videos to be that useful to watch. They seem to be more like a advertisement to entice you to buy additional video lessons.

But these are small minuses considering how much I've learned in a few hours of reading the book and doing the exercices.

Photoshop is an essential, powerful, and sometimes a bit overwhelming imaging manipulation tool. O'Reilly's Adobe Photoshop CS One-on-One clears the fog, taking you from graphics newbie to Photoshop warrior, under the watchful, easygoing guidance of Photoshop master Deke McClelland. This full-color book, which is accompanied by nearly two hours of video tutorials on CD, is an up-close and personal training experience. Deke's classroom approach takes you step-by-step through real-world projects that help you gain Photoshop proficiency. Along the way, you'll get a good dose of graphics theory, best practices, and tips for avoiding Photoshop disasters.

This one-of-a-kind approach fills a gap in the available literature and delivers a unique learning experience.

After reading many of the easy-to-understand chapters and looking at the very well done CD, I felt that my personal skills had definitely been improved substantially. At the outset of each book-based lesson, it was very helpful to play the accompanying video lesson from the CD, which I would highly recommend to anyone trying to learn this program.

This One-on-One classroom is setup for you to read the lesson, watch the video and then perform the step-by-step exercises which teach you Photoshop's most powerful and essential functions.

In the words of the Master, Deke McClelland, "This book is here to take you on that journey of pain and reward. Sure, there may be occasional times when you'll wonder if Photoshop is Adobe's idea of the Nine Circles of Hell. But just as Dante emerged from the lowest circle by climbing down the very Devil himself, we'll conquer Photoshop by descending directly into it and coming out the other side. We will make peace with Photoshop through understanding, the understanding borne by knowledge, the knowledge wrought by experience. Take heart, kindred spirit; mastery will be yours".

It was a great pleasure to review this book and I feel honored to have spent this time with the MASTER!